Aphrodite's Curse

Contains sexual content and some physical violence.

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It’s our first excursion away from the safety and sanity of home. Macey splashes in the ocean like a fetus swinging from an umbilical cord; Splash too much, and you might rupture the binding to be born too prematurely and escape mommy's closeness and be swept away in the vast undertow. The to and fro and gurgling of water through fluttering nostrils makes me uneasy. Why couldn’t she be holding my hand with me on the sand? Why abandon me for the vastness of blue? She is wading too close to that dude with the six-pack; I eye her. Does she love me?

“Jump in, Jack,” Macey shouts.

“Nah! You know, I don’t like water,” I say.  It reminds me of amniotic fluid, and I don’t want to drown.

“Come on, Jack! It’ll be your first time in the Atlantic! It’ll be fun!” 

 Fun? That word is miserable! Does Macey know that pleasure leads to flirtation? And she is having fun without me, thrashing around in self ecstasy in the ocean. I want her next to me. That guy is smiling at her. Macey smiles back at Six-pack. Does she still love me? Maybe I should just jump in and hug Macey; Show him that she’s taken. 

“O.K Jack! You lose.”

Lose? Is she leaving me? 

Six-pack strides closer to Macey. God! They are talking to each other! I grit my teeth. She’s having an affair! How dare she? They both approach the shore together. God! Six-pack is looking at her butt! I want to punch him in the head. 

Macey grabs the smiley-face towel from her beach chair; she is drying herself, and I can’t get the image out of my head. Smiley-face is having an affair also; the yellow bastard is winking from the touch of her skin. Six-pack is standing behind her.

“Hey, Jack, this is Mason,” Macy says, “he seems like such a cool guy.” 

Cool or Hot?

Six-pack reaches out to shake my hand; I only glare at him. 

“You are one lucky man,” Six-pack says, “to have such a great woman as Macey.” 

Yeah! She’s excellent enough to notice. Perhaps sufficient enough to be lucky. 

“Yeah! She’s my girl, “ I say, “Just don’t you dare have an inkling!” 

Macey swats me mid-sternum with the back of a hand. “Jack!” She turns to Mason and shakes her head. “Don’t mind him; he gets jealous!”

Six-pack smiled back at her. “It’s ok! He’s such a lucky fella to have you! I’d be envious too!” 

Six-pack’s pectorals are twerking along with a mischievous smile on glossy lips. Envious? Damn vanity; better not think he can invade my sacred space with that display. 

“Nice meeting you two,” Six-pack says, “Listen, you’re welcome to come to dinner tonight. Don’t worry about food and drink; I’ve got plenty.”

I dig my feet into the sand until the glass-like particles sting my toes. “No! I think–”

“Yes! Mason, we’ll come!” Macey says. I swear Macey’s eyes are only scanning Six-pack’s well-chiseled chest.

Six-pack points down the beach toward the largest property in sight. “That’s my place, my palace; we eat at eight.” 

It didn’t look palatial but more like a beach condo with plenty of amenities. Above a stucco wall enclosure, a nubile woman hops on a diving board. She sports half a bikini, and her knockers flap in the open air. Another young woman is lying on a lawn chair, bare boobs facing heaven to entice easy entry when the mortal event happens. He’s a player. It makes him dangerous.

Six-pack trudges away, eyes glancing down; he smiles at the sand. 

Macey lies down beside me. I turn my back to her. Trepidation gnaws my flesh like a lion devours a zebra, and I can’t explain why. I’m losing Macey.

“Wha! What’s wrong, Jack?” Macey touches my shoulder with tenderness. I flinch.

“Do you love me?” I say. 

Macey exhales; yet, my hyperacuity conspires with perception; I hear Macey’s clucking eyes rolling with exacerbation. I smell the fetid lies from her mouth. 

“Of course, I love you, Jack, but you’ve been acting possessive lately. Didn’t we come south for a little fun together?” 

“Fun? How was that tryst with Mason? Was that fun?” I say. Macey glares at me like a Medusa–cold as stone. “Macey, what’s in your mind?”

Macey pounds her fist into my midriff. “I shouldn’t have to explain it, Jack! Mason is just a guy I met in the water, the water you don’t like. Just an ordinary guy like the thousands I pass every day on the subway going to work. Are you that possessive?”

“He was speaking to you! He was interacting, Macey.” I threw a clump of sand into the air.

“So, what?”

“So, you don’t love me, then?” I say.

“You know what I was saying to Mason, Jack? Do you want to know? I told Mason we were down here for a break, and I was looking forward to spending time with you. I even pointed you out, but here you are, acting like you own me. Do you think I’m a whore letting loose on any guy I see? If you think that you don’t respect me!”

“But he was smiling–”

“So! Probably thought I was single. Just testing the water to find out if they are permitted to go to the next level. If he flirted with me, so what? I still let him know I was taken. Don’t you remember flirting with me when we met? But I was available to you, unlike Mason. If I wanted to cheat, Jack, I’d do it behind your back, not right in front of you. What’s wrong with you?”

I grab Macey’s hand but keep my head turned. It’s epic manipulation. Speak the truth but lie with an averted gaze to avoid pain. “You are so beautiful that you could be a model, run a beauty blog, or be Hugh Hefner’s pet! And that scares me.”

“Why?” Macey says.

“Because you become clickbait, and one click can take you to some la-la land where you’d end up some worldly slut. I’d lose you forever! We are not going to Six-pack’s!” 

“Being insecure won’t help Jack. Would you prefer me to be ugly? Would that make you feel better? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about any other guy! Or how bout admitting that because I’m pretty, you’d have to try harder to keep me. It takes too much effort to keep me, doesn’t it, Jack? Mason wouldn’t have been able to talk to me if you came into the ocean with me. Do you get it? By avoiding me and not trying, you are getting yourself more twisted in insecurity, and it’s your problem, not mine. I didn’t ask for that; you did. Wasn’t your mother the same way? Didn’t your father leave her for the same thing? I see it in you, Jack.” 

I squeeze Macey’s hand so hard that she jolts it away. “I don’t want to hear about Mommy. Don't say Daddy left her; he didn't, but she left us because her booze was more important. Daddy said I was drunk when I was born because she was intoxicated from my conception to my birth. And Daddy tried his best, but she kept drinking.” 

“You’re not listening, Jack; it doesn’t matter who left; she was insecure, like you. She didn’t keep her relationship with your father because she couldn’t deal with herself, It takes effort to keep your partner, and you are having the same difficulties. I think it was your father who left because he couldn’t help her. She had to help herself.”

“I can’t deal with this!” I scream it loud. She looks hurt. I get up and walk toward the Hotel.

***

After drinking a beer on the balcony, I enter the hotel room; Macey is lying bare naked on the bed. She sweeps a hand inside her thighs while flirting with her hair. 

“Play with me,” she says. “Show me you love me!”

I’m horny now, looking forward to a moment of lustful compassion. I feel a thrill in my groin like no other. Does Macey already forgive me? I lie next to her. God, she is beautiful, a modern clone of Aphrodite. There is power in beauty; Macey should have been ‘hands-off’ to any suitor. A goddess could make any one of her subjects the prey for lust. And once the target, damnation results. I’m doomed as Macey’s silk skin ensnares me. It is the soft brush of flesh that tingles hair follicles, not the coarse pressure of bone on bone. I am ready. I get inside her, as hard as a diamond.

But as Macey paws my flabby chest, I only think of Six-pack. Are you thinking of him, Macey? She is moaning, but a model deserves a model and not a flab-boy.  Admit it; six packs are more intoxicating than one pack. I thrust back and forth, trying to maintain my hardness, but I only see Macey staring back at Mason even when I look at Aphrodite. My dick is flaccid as I don’t feel it. I am damned.

And the more might, the more fright. Macey reminds me of Mommy at the moment, and I am drinking Jack Daniels from my mother’s amniotic sac. I am trying to avoid it—Mommy, why abandon your son? I twist and turn my fetus head in the bath, nearly strangling myself in the cord. If I could only rip myself out by forced cesarean, I would as I am too young to know the pleasure of drink, too young to absorb ethanol through my fetal liver. I cling to my mommy for comfort just the same. I look at Macey and scream out, ‘Mommy.’ I need to cling to her, not as a man, but as a child; As a man, Macey makes me hornier than any man ever to exist. But as a child, my dick is softer than butter. 

Macey throws me off her. “Jack, grow up!” she runs to the bathroom. The shower is running. I smoke a cigarette as I need to relax. 

Macey is dolled up as she emerges from the bathroom. 

“Where are you going?” I say. 

“Don’t you remember Mason's party?” She looks more beautiful now than when I fucked her.

“Don’t you remember me saying that we’re not going?”

Macey puts on a tight pair of jeans and a halter top that reveals a narrow cleavage between two supple hills.

“You don’t have to go, Jack. You can just sit here and suck your thumb and cry to your mommy. I don’t care! I’m going!”

“Didn’t you see those whores over there? Naked! And they are just female friends? It looks like a Hugh Heffner ranch! Six-pack’s got designs, I’d say!” 

“Fuck you!” Macey says as she slams the door shut. I hurt Macey, but I am jealous. I felt terrible; I couldn’t climax; I only thought of Mommy in the act of sex, and that made me limp but strangely satisfied.

I stand on the balcony. Macey is trudging through the sand toward Mason's, head low and crying. I feel redeemed. Perhaps, she does love me! I can now be her savior! Forget that she’s an independent person. Forget that she has her thoughts and feelings; I can save you! Let me comfort your pain, my dear, and you’ll love me forever. 

***

I cross the beach grass. The two beauties are still at the pool, naked as shaved dogs. I go around the side where there is a lonely window. A dim light is glowing inside. Silhouette shapes face one another through silk net drapes, but I can tell it is Macey and Six-pack. She has a hand on his chest, gently brushing up and down like a conductor enticing a violin section, like sweet music through gratification. I’ve come to save you, but from what? Macey is not crying now but smiling. I’m gobsmacked because I can’t save her. I can only overreact like a jealous man. I pound the window with the fist of a maniac. I don’t even feel the shard of glass bloody my knuckles because the sight of Adonis and Aphrodite bloody my soul even more.

“Intruder!” Six-pack jolts up. In the cabinet behind, he scrounges around in a drawer. He grabs a pistol and runs at me. I don’t move, and I don’t care. “Intruder!” he screams.

“Scumbag!” I say. But it’s too late for him to recognize me. The bullet hits where wrinkles and doubt usually form. 

Visions form in my mind. I see myself entangled in that umbilical cord, and I am too intoxicated from the Jack Daniels to free myself. I am too rigid to see the truth. My mommy left me as I left her body at birth. Yet, I hold her close; It’s my only comfort. 

I fall back beneath the window, and Macey is crying now, but I can’t save her just as I can’t save my mother.